Herpetology in Art

Reptiles by Mc Esher

This is a famous piece by Mc Esher, which potrays ambiguity between a simple tessilation and life itself. The art work seems to come alive. What I take from this portrait is intellegence of reptiles to manipulate their surrondings in general. The art work also could symbolize the evolution of reptiles and any other organism.The tessilation could be considered the most basil group or the ancestory group (it could be consider to represent the beginning of life, a simple RNA strand, bacteria, or even the transition of aquatic tetrapods to land tetrapods) . This would symbolize the past. The present would be symbolized by the reptile climbing above the book because it looks similar to a current living alligator or komoto dragon. The reptile with smoke coming out of its nostrils could be considered a future evolutionary path. Though not realistic at all, the concept/idea of such a drastic change is intriguing.

By Philip Melton